The French interrogative system, which allows for variation among several distinct syntactic structures, constitutes a domain in which normative prescription and actual usage differ greatly (Elsig, 2009). Although many sociolinguistic studies have examined this variation (e.g., Ashby, 1977; Behnstedt, 1973; Coveney, 1989, 2002; Fox, 1989; Myers, 2007; Quillard, 2000), most can be characterized ...

In this paper it is argued that the interpretation of an interrogative sentence is underspecified by its conventional meaning. A uniform but still substantial underspecified meaning is given, and it is shown how this underspecification can be resolved by making use of a relevance relation between propositions.

In the rst part of this paper I discussed two central notions concerning questions, aboutness and resolvedness, and proposed an analysis of these notions which I used to provide a situation semantics account for both query and embedded uses of interrogatives (seèResolving Questions, I' for discussion and for the notation assumed below; all sections numbered 5.x and less are in part I.). In this...